Predictors of recall and reading time for seductive and nonseductive text segments

This correlational study explored how concreteness, relevance, importance, and interestingness related to the recall of seductive details and base text, while controlling for text coherence, and student background knowledge. Previous research has provided evidence for the significant relationship between these variables and the seductive details effect in particular and text recall in general. However, this is the first study to consider all these variables simultaneously. A group of 68 undergraduates read an expository text on lightning formation, performed an immediate test on free recall, and rated each text sentence for concreteness, relevance, importance, and interestingness. A simple regression analysis revealed that only interest significantly improved students\u27 recall of seductive sentences. However, none of the four ratings or the reading time predicted recall of base text sentences. Results regarding reading time demonstrated that seductive sentences were read faster than base text sentences. Strong positive correlation was revealed between relevance and importance. This result indicated that in the absence of explicit relevance instruction, relevance and importance could be used interchangeably. Significant positive correlation was revealed between concreteness and interest. However, this correlation was lower than expected. This result was interpreted in the light of Dual Coding Theory